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SM-16798
This feature introduces a new, flexible process project framework that allows you to define custom qualification and other supplier lifecycle processes to fit your organization's business processes.
Buyers have various registration, qualification processes, and other processes for different kinds of suppliers. Today, in SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance, we have one registration and one qualification, and the end result of these processes are not always black and white. Customers want the capability to define the status manually for example qualified with exceptions, or choose a different status when a questionnaire is expired, etc.
Buyers don’t have capability to leverage the information already provided by suppliers in various processes. As a result, suppliers end up providing the same information again and again even though it is applicable for multiple categories, regions, and business units.
* Provide new framework where customers can define their own processes to qualify/segment suppliers based on their business needs.
* Customers can define multiple process templates and choose various modular questionnaires that are applicable
* Leverage the questionnaire if it is already submitted by supplier and ask only those new questionnaires that have not been answered by the supplier.
Supplier Management
Buyer and Supplier
Customer Configured
SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance
SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite
Process projects have the following prerequisites:
- A customer administrator in your organization must enable the flexible process framework feature using the following two self-service configuration parameters:
- Enable modular process framework in Intelligent Configuration Manager (requires membership in the Customer Administrator group).
- Application.SM.Process.EnableModularProcessFramework in SM Administration Configuration Parameters (requires membership in the SM Ops Administrator group).
Remember: always make sure both of these parameters have the same setting.
- To use departments in process projects, the business unit (department) feature must be enabled and department master data must be loaded in your site.
- If your site also includes SAP Ariba Sourcing, there are some specific considerations and prerequisites related to legacy versus process qualification and guided versus legacy sourcing events. Refer to About supplier qualification and SAP Ariba Sourcing events.
- To import process type and custom process status master data in Ariba Administrator, you must be a member of the Customer Administrator group. To import process statuses and rules for automatically assigning process statuses in SM Administration, you must be a member of the SM Ops Administrator group.
- To create process project templates, you must be a member of both the Template Creator and SM Process Manager groups.
- To create a process project, you must be a member of both the SM Modular Questionnaire Manager global user group and a project group in the template with the Process Initiator role.
- To add a modular questionnaire to a process project template, the modular questionnaire project template must have at least one published version.
- To set the final status of a process project manually, you must be a member of a project group with the Decision Maker role.
Process projects have the following restrictions:
- There's no migration from legacy qualification projects to process qualification projects. This restriction means that:
- There's no way to migrate data from questionnaires in legacy, dedicated qualification projects to the modular supplier management questionnaires used in qualification process projects. Once the process project feature is enabled in your site, requalifications based on legacy qualifications involve new qualification process projects that don't include any data from the previous qualification, and recipients must submit new process-based modular questionnaires to requalify. The questionnaire import in SM Administration doesn't support importing data into modular questionnaires and can't be used to migrate qualification data from legacy qualification questionnaires or external systems into process-related modular questionnaires.
- Legacy qualifications and process qualifications have different status filters in supplier searches. Supplier searches using Qualification status filters return results for legacy qualifications, while supplier searches using Supplier process status return results for process qualifications. If your site includes both types of qualifications, searches must use both filters to return complete results.
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Template upgrade for process projects isn't currently supported. However:
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Template upgrade for the modular questionnaire projects used in process projects is available.
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Process renewals always include the intake form and any additional modular questionnaires referenced by new external tasks in the currently published version of the template. Any questionnaires included in a process project that are no longer referenced by external tasks in the currently published version of the template remain in upgraded process projects.
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- Once process projects are enabled in your site, legacy qualifications are disabled and
- Qualification managers can no longer create legacy qualification projects.
- Starting a requalification based on an existing legacy qualification project creates a new process qualification project.
- Qualification managers can still create disqualification projects based on existing legacy qualifications.
- You can no longer use the Supplier qualification data import to define new legacy supplier qualifications or update existing qualifications with any status other than Expired. Instead, you use the supplier process data import to set qualification statuses, which are mapped to standard SAP Ariba qualification lifecycle statuses. This new import can't create a process qualification if there's a legacy qualification project that is in progress for the same combination of commodities, regions, and departments.
Using the Supplier qualification data import to define new qualifications or update existing imported qualifications to Expired status makes them eligible for renewal using process qualification. You can't use this data import to update the status of legacy qualifications that are based on projects.
The process project feature doesn't disrupt legacy qualification projects that are in progress. Existing workflows for these projects continue to work, and they can be completed as before.
- After a supplier is qualified using a qualification process project, there's no way to create a disqualification project based on that qualification process project. There's currently no separate disqualification process workflow with questionnaires and approvals. However, a decision maker for the qualification process project can manually change its status, and you can also update the status using data import or an API client application.
- If you use a process project for qualification, the supplier's custom qualification status in the user interface is determined by the associated process project based on mappings between process project states and standard SAP Ariba qualification statuses. Qualifications based on legacy qualification projects or data import continue to show legacy qualification statuses in the user interface.
- Currently, SAP Ariba Supplier Lifecycle and Performance supports 1 project template per process type. You can define multiple process types per lifecycle type, but keep in mind that the first process project of a given lifecycle type sets the overall status for the supplier. If your ERP integration is configured to synchronize new suppliers based on qualification, this status also synchronizes the supplier to the ERP at that point. For example, you can create a prequalification process type and a full qualification process type, both mapped to the Qualification lifecycle type. However, the supplier's overall qualification status is determined by the final statuses of all process projects with the Qualification lifecycle type completed at the time. Therefore, an approved prequalification process can set the supplier's overall qualification status to Qualified and synchronize them to the ERP system. Refer to Project states (Project Status) and custom process statuses for more information.
Note: currently, sourcing events, contract workspaces, and the guided buying capability can't consume qualification statuses if you have more than 1 process type with the Qualification lifecycle type.
- You can only create internal modular questionnaire projects as part of a process project. Stand-alone internal modular questionnaires aren't supported.
- Synchronization of data in mapped questions in modular questionnaires to an integrated ERP system isn't currently verified or certified by SAP Ariba. Synchronization of data from the process intake form to an integrated ERP system isn't supported. If your integration configuration specifies automatic integration of new suppliers based on qualification status, process qualification status works the same way as legacy qualification status to trigger initial synchronization to the ERP system.
- Currently, while process initiators can edit the process intake form when renewing a process, and decision-makers can edit it while making setting final status, the intake form doesn't have a version history that shows previous responses. It only shows the current answers.
Supplier Lifecycle & Performance > Modular Questionnaire 2111